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The Party of "No"

Technorati and Me

Technorati is indexing me again! They had to make a code change to fix
the problem with my blog getting stuck in their queue. Kudos to Eric M.
and the guys at
GetSatisfaction.com
where they have "community powered support for Technorati".

Well, they're "sorta, kinda" indexing me anyway. It's on a 24 hour tape
delay or something. So I never get picked up by Memeorandum because they
pull from Technorati and Technorati has stuff I posted yesterday
listed as my latest blog entry. And that's old news to Memeorandum.

Wankers.

Fair Use Notice

"This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been
specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is being made available in
an effort to advance the understanding of environmental, political, human
rights, economic, democracy, scientific, social issues, etc. It is believed
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided
for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C.
Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit for
research and educational purposes."

It's a sunny Saturday morning. Your garage sale items are all lined up, neatly
arranged on tables waiting for the first customer. And then the black Suburbans
pull up. Federal Copyright Agents swoop in, confiscating everything made outside
the USA, and slapping handcuffs on you and your children.

At issue in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons is the first-sale doctrine in
copyright law, which allows you to buy and then sell things like electronics,
books, artwork and furniture, as well as CDs and DVDs, without getting
permission from the copyright holder of those products.

Under the doctrine, which the Supreme Court has recognized since 1908, you
can resell your stuff without worry because the copyright holder only had
control over the first sale.

Put simply, though Apple Inc. has the copyright on the iPhone and Mark Owen
has it on the book "No Easy Day," you can still sell your copies to whomever
you please whenever you want without retribution.

That's being challenged now for products that are made abroad, and if the
Supreme Court upholds an appellate court ruling, it would mean that the
copyright holders of anything you own that has been made in China, Japan
or Europe, for example, would have to give you permission to sell it.

Since virtually nothing is made entirely in the US these days
this case has the potential to kill secondhand sales nationwide. No more
used cars. No iPods on EBay. No used books, magazines, CDs, DVDs, or
computers.

The greed of the publishing / entertainment / electronics industry is
breathtaking in its audacity. The thing is though, lower courts have
already ruled in favor of the copyright police. See, it's "not fair"
that they could lose out on an additional sale. The guy who can't
buy your used copy of Das Kapital will almost certainly drive
on over to Barnes & Noble to purchase a brand new edition. Honest.

Will SCOTUS see reason? Don't count on it. Chief Justice John Roberts
pulled Obamatax out of his ass. There's no telling what he might do
with his newfound power to fuck over American citizens with the stroke
of a pen. No one sells used SCOTUS opinions, right? What does he care
if he makes garage sales illegal?